South Branch intelligencer. [volume] (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) 1830-1896, 1887-09-16
MEXICAN BURIALS.
The Manner of Conducting fu-
nerals Across the Border.
Customs that Seem Strange to
an American Visitor.

Customs that Seem Strange to
an American Visitor.
Writing from Mexico, Fannie b.
Ward says in a letter to the New York
Times: Another curious feature of Mexi-
can life is the manner of conducting
funerals. The rich go to the cemeteries
in carriages, rs elsewhere; the middle
class so on the street cars, coffin and
all, while the poor walk and carry their
dead upon their shoulders. When horse
cars were first introduced into the Next
can capital, the manager of the line con-
ceivcd the plan of buying and retiring
all the hearses. Then he put funeral
cars on that branch running to the ceme-
terry, and the result was that everybody
wishing to bury in consecrated ground
was at his mercy. 1t soon became the
fashion to visit the panteon in the horse
cars, and all except those two extreme
ciasses-the very richest and the very
poorest-now avail themselves of the
privilege. One frequently encounters a
funeral procession of this kind en- route to
the grave, the car drapcd in black if
the corpse be that of man, or in white
II 1T be n woman or a child-thc coffin
exposed to the full glare of the sun and
the gaze of the populace, the horses,
with their nodding plumes, driven by a
spruce young man in conventional uni
form, and the car containing the
"mourners" gliding gaily over the rails.
The price for this service is graduated to
suit the taste or necessities of the be-
rcaved, and ranges from $3 to $500, de-
pending upon the hearse equipments,
the number of horses and livcried at
tendants.
There has been a great improvement
in Mexico in the matter of funerals
within the last few years Still owing
to the scarcity of wood, which costs from
$50 to 500 per thousand feet, and the
wretchedly small wages of the working
classes, the poor generally rent coffin
for the last sad journey, at the most
about dollar. Arriving ut the ccme-
terry, the body is taken out and wrapped
in serape, laid in his rented grav- and
the gorgeously painted box returned to
Its owner. In thousands of cases the
grave is hired only for the space of
three or four months and at the end of
that time the bones are shoveled out to
make room for new tenant. Quick
lime Is thrown in with the corpse to
hasten the work of decomposition, but
1t is no uncommon sight no see kicked
about the charnel yard of interior vii
lagos, skulls with long tresses of hair
attached and other horrors which show
that no sacredness is here attached to
the dead. To the average Mexican the
idea of death has no terrors, and he dies
as lndifferently as he has lived. In
many villages the custom is still cxtant
of decorating dead children with the
wings of geese and turkeys, paper
crowns, ribbons and flowers, then march
ing them about the streets seated in n
chair, and burying them amid the noise
of tirecrackers and miastrels playing
polkas and fandangoes.
A few years ago one of the most cele-
brated writers in Mexico said: .In the
capital, as well as in the interior, have
seen even more revolving things. The
pulque merchants hire dead bodies. call
ed angelatos NEW born angels), as
means of attracting customers. The
gathering crowd pray at first, and then
they drink, while the muchachas make
appointments with their lovers. Thus
the body serves several merchants in
turn, earning for its relatives an honest
penny, and is not buried until too often
sive to be endured"
Even more curious are the customs of
All Saints day, and the following eight
days Fair for the Dead" Then all
the shops are in holiday dress, bull fights
and theatres in full blast, and dealers in
cakes and bon-bons drive lively trade.
But the CONNECTIONS must all be appro-
pirate to the season, such, for instance,
as jointed skeletons in spring boxes
deaths head in sugar, candy cadavers,
cakes in the form of catafalques, etc.
Every good Mexican attends this fair
for the sake of his departed ancestors,
and as little gifts cherish pure affection,
the lover presents his sweetheart with
sugar skeleton, or n skull as big as her
fist; the husband rcgalcs his wife on n
tally sepulchre, and the fond mother in
dulges her child in a complete burial
scene. SO everybody renders himself
and his friends as happy as possible, and
these strange tokens help to foster the
national Indifference TO death.